Page 101 of Hero's Prize

Can’t find her anywhere. Checked work, house, friends. Texted five dozen times.

Don’t worry. She’ll definitely show back up for tomorrow’s goodbye lunch for the campers. She wouldn’t miss that, no matter how pissed at you she is.

That was true. She would definitely want to be able to say goodbye to Ashley and Marshall and the other kids.

But damn it, Colton didn’t want to go another night without being able to tell her how sorry he was. Even if she didn’t forgive him—which he wouldn’t blame her at all for—he wanted to try.

He swiped a hand down his face and got out of the truck. Whathewanted didn’t matter. If Ella needed time on her own, he would give it to her. Not that he had any choice at this point anyway.

He was so lost in his own stupidity that he was completely unaware of the attack until he was being tackled on the ground.

The wind was knocked out of him as he hit the dirt, but Colton had spent all of his career reacting to unexpected circumstances thatchanged in a split second. He caught a punch on the jaw, but he was able to roll over to his side and then kip back up onto his feet.

For a second, he wondered if Lilah had decided not to wait for the sparring ring after all, but almost immediately, he realized that the person who tackled him was too big to be Lilah. She was strong and fast, but she was tiny.

“You son of a bitch!”

Colton blinked twice when he realized it was Rick standing in front of him like some sort of bull in front of a red flag.

“Rick? What the fuck are you doing?”

Not only was he here, he was wearing a black hoodie.

“Why would you fire me?” He flew at Colton again, but this time, Colton was ready and he sidestepped, letting the younger man fly through the empty space.

Rick stumbled but caught himself without falling. He spun back around, glaring at Colton. “You ignore my calls? And you don’t even have the guts to fire me to my face, especially after what I did for you?”

“What youdidfor me? I fucking fired you because you made it look like Ella was the one who posted that social media message.”

“All I did was mention the damned sticky note! And yeah, it did look suspicious. But then I figured out that she wasn’t the one who’d posted it, yet youstillfired me.”

“Nice try.”

Rick threw his hands up in the air. “You little prick. You were just looking for a reason to get rid of me, weren’t you? Just because I don’t like your precious town.”

“Go home, Rick. You’re fired. There, now I’ve said it to your face.”

Colton just wanted to go inside, but there was no way he was going to turn his back on Rick. And damn, if the man had a weapon, this might get ugly quickly. Colton had a concealed carry permit and kept a Glock in his truck. He casually started easing in that direction, hoping he wouldn’t need it.

“You’re so damn ungrateful. Always thinking about yourself.”

Colton shrugged. “Actually, on that, we agree. Although I’m hoping to change.”

Rick continued to glare at him. “I knew I’d been a dick about this town and about your precious Ella. That’s why I started digging deeper into who posted that announcement on social media. I was the one who discovered it wasn’t her.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Rick rolled his eyes. “Why would I make something like that up?”

“To get your job back?”

He threw up his hands. “I told Tony all this before you fired me. Because, yeah, I knew I’d been an asshole and deserved to be fired. But I thought discovering this would make a difference.”

Something wasn’t making sense here. “Wait. What? You told Tony?”

“Yeah. I told Tony, and I thought everything would be good. But then a couple hours later, he shows back up to say you’d fired me and you’d gotten a restraining order against me.”

What the hell was going on? “Rick, that’s not even how restraining orders work. I can’t just order one and have it ready thirty minutes later. And especially not without some sort of probable cause. Plus, why would I get a restraining order against you? They don’t give them out for people being an asshole. You must’ve misunderstood what Tony was saying.”

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